


Darkest Hour of the Night

by Sporadic_Writer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:10:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7278490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporadic_Writer/pseuds/Sporadic_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like watching a train wreck.  It's mesmerizing, to your horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkest Hour of the Night

John's taken a late shift because no one's waiting for him back at his dank little flat, and he could use the extra cash. He's filling out paperwork when the really posh bloke arrives, not in an ambulance, but in a long black car with the shiniest polish John has seen since his cousin Lucy's wedding to a banker's son three years ago.

“What's happened?” John asks crisply, before his eyes fall on the man's pale, clammy skin, his rapid breathing rushing through his flared nostrils. Those symptoms look oddly familiar, and he's reminded of his residency spent in a city hospital that served its fair share of drug addicts found convulsing in the dirty alleys.

The really nice looking woman accompanying the sick man taps efficiently on her Blackberry before handing the gadget to him without saying a word.

Blinking in surprise, John takes the thing anyway, his suspicions confirmed once he reads the words “cocaine overdose” neatly typed above what looks to be insurance and medical information. “Okay, then,” John says after a pause, and he rushes the man inside, with a nurse along taking vitals.

Bloody idiot, John thinks even as he quickly goes about his work, but he doesn't say it aloud, because the woman is still there, and once she's reclaimed her Blackberry, she continues to tap away, not at all concerned about her...whatever they are to each other. Still, she stays until the man wakes, and not every one of John's patients is so lucky, and that makes him angry. It makes him angrier still when he notices the golden band on the man's right hand. 

“You need to get help,” John orders once his patient has been stabilized and wakes up with lucidity. “You nearly killed yourself, and if your—uh—” 

“Assistant,” the woman supplies blandly, eyes still on her phone. John pauses, taken aback at the last thing he would have guessed.

“All right,” he continues hastily, the wind a little out of his sails. “If your assistant hadn't brought you in, you'd be dead as a doorknob. You understand that, Mr. Holmes? You'd be dead!” 

“I know,” Mr. Holmes says calmly, his eyes shining from the heavy bags underneath and skin so thin the tiny veins were too easily visible. His physical weakness doesn't detract from the overall sense of will and arrogance that John can practically see rising in a cloak around the supine body. “Lectures are, indeed, rather tiring,” Holmes muses, as though to himself.

That little comment hits the outraged brother-doctor seething in John's soul. “No, you don't know,” John enunciates the words. “You think you do. Every addict does. Then you relapse again and again. And you don't really know until it's too late. Do yourself and your family a favor, and get clean!” Near the end, John's nearly yelling, and at a complete stranger, who watches him with avid interest.

“My apologies, Dr. Watson,” Holmes says, actually looking a little humbled to John's satisfaction, “if I seemed irreverent. However, I do rather know the effects of what I took. It was a momentary weakness, and it won't happen again.” Holmes looks down at his clasped hands, long fingers tightening until the knuckles turn white. “I've seen what happens.”

It's the heart-deep pain evident in the man's eyes that stops John from saying anything more, so he leaves the man to sleep. When he checks on his patient an hour later, the bed is empty, and the sheets are neatly tucked under the mattress. John throws up his hands in mute aggravation.

 

“John.” Sarah's voice sounds off, and he's off his stool and striding towards her before she can even ask her question. She looks at him warily and passes him a card. “Do you know this man?” The card is made of a heavy, rich stock that makes a mockery of the much thinner, slightly wrinkled cards John has stashed about his pockets and rarely gives out.

“Hello?” John says cautiously after the woman—Anthea, apparently—has him transferred. “Hello? I got this note that Mycroft Holmes wanted me to call?” No clue why he bothered doing so, seeing as how he doesn't know the name, but he doesn't have any patients at the time.

“Dr. Watson,” a familiar voice answers. “Thank you for calling. I have great respect for your time, so I'll come to the point. How would you like a job?”

“I've already got one, thanks,” John says warily.

Mycroft Holmes chuckles dryly. “Isn't it interesting that your weak hand only stops its trembling when you find a patient in need of emergency care? You miss the war, Dr. Watson. Why don't you help me fight mine?” 

“What the—Look, you don't know me, and those are some seriously personal comments you're making. I've already got a therapist, and I don't need psychotherapy from someone who really needs to get some help of his own.” John knows he's been rather short and maybe a little unprofessional, but first, this drug addict gets himself overdosed, and then he leaves against medical advice, and now he's telling John that he's been wasting all those months of therapy. 

“I expect I can change your mind, Dr. Watson,” Holmes says, ignoring John's spluttering denial. “Why don't you come in for a cup of tea?”

Through the open window, John sees the familiar long black car arrive outside the hospital door. “Fine,” John mutters furiously. “I'll give you a piece of my mind.”

“I still don't understand what you want from me,” John says, as he sips at a well-brewed cup of tea and reclines in a plush armchair that envelops him in softness. “I want to make sure we're on the same page since, you know, it is a bit damning to go around hiring men for their 'company.'”

Holmes, who is looking pensively at the plate of small iced cakes, smiles slyly. “Perhaps so. But as I mentioned earlier, I want a companion. I can do without the companionship.”

“I don't think there's a difference,” John says after thinking it over for a confused moment. “Anyway, if you want a companion, then you could do better than the doctor who berated you while you were sick.”

“While I was suffering from my overdose,” Holmes corrects. “I can appreciate your candor, Dr. Watson. I don't expect a toady. I have enough of those at work. I need someone who can give me a different perspective on some key areas of life.”

He pauses there for a moment, and the silence grows until John starts shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He's about to say ta for the tea and slink towards the door when the man continues.

“And I don't deny that I haven't anyone else I care to ask,” Holmes says rather quietly. 

John watches as he seems to fall into his own mind and forget John's presence. What the hell, John thinks recklessly. It's not like he has much going for him. Ella thinks he's so traumatized by the war that he “deliberately avoids social situations” and “shows evidence of becoming a recluse.” Right, well, that won't do. He'll show her. 

 

A symphony is not what John expected. Honestly, if he did, he would have made his excuses and escaped before the first violinist's bow touched the strings. As it is, he's stuck there, and with Holmes staring raptly at the orchestra, John feels too embarrassed to ask for the men's room. 

“You didn't like it,” Holmes observes later, as they sit in a nearby restaurant, having a late dinner with a full five courses. 

“No,” John says honestly. “I like Classical music all right, but...” Actually, John can't really explain his distaste for the music he just heard. It was, objectively speaking, very beautiful.

Holmes doesn't look offended. “Yes, I understand. Chausson's work does have a certain je ne sais quoi that can unnerve some listeners. I believe it's to do with the unexpected changes in harmony that occur; humans don't like the unexpected. Or rather, most don't.”

“Do you play an instrument?” John asks, trying to pin his green beans with his fork without making too much noise. He can tell Holmes comes from the sort of family that values formal musical training. He imagines hours of practice inside a mausoleum instead of the usual rough-and-tumble play and feels rather sorry for the other man. 

“I played the piano,” Holmes says after a long pause, and he sounds a bit hesitant, and John wonders if he usually makes that fact known. and it sounds like he doesn't make that revelation known very often. “And yourself?” Holmes politely returns the question, straight out of a manners manual.

“The recorder, like everybody else in school,” John tells him sheepishly, and a quirk of the lips nearly livens Holmes's solemn features. “I've forgotten it all now though, of course. I was absolutely terrible. Do you still play the piano?”

“No, I don't,” Holmes admits with a hint of regret in his voice. “I rarely have the time for extensive practice, and skills rust so easily without consistency. It's no pleasure to listen to my playing now.”

“Well, you could still go back to it,” John points out. “Sometimes it can be nice to have a hobby to de-stress. And you can always try something that's portable, like the flute or violin.”

Holmes's expression is unreadable. “Yes, well, the violin can be a very...passionate instrument. My temperament doesn't suit it.” He brings his glass of wine to his lips and sips so genteelly that John starts to worry that he's been slurping away at his own glass.

“Right,” John says because he hasn't any idea what else to say, and he resists the urge to tug at the tie that Holmes insisted he wear with his newly made suit. They sit in silence as the waiters clear their plates and bring in a tray of fancy little desserts for their inspection.

“So, is that it then?” John asks suspiciously. “You want someone to go with you to symphonies? You don't need me for that. I'm sure there are circles and clubs for that sort of thing.”

Holmes swirls the red wine in his glass, gazing into its shifting depths. “Oh, I never did like being sociable. It's a rather fatal flaw that runs in the family, I'm afraid.”

“Well, nothing wrong with being an introvert,” John offers. “Sometimes it's nice to be alone inside your own head. Introspection and all that.”

Holmes smiles a little thinly before changing the topic to the various desserts on offer.

 

The man's unpredictable. Symphony and tuxes one day, chatting with London's homeless population another. Well, it's not really chatting when everyone avoids them like the plague. John supposes that they can smell the money off Holmes even though he's not looking nearly so posh right now. In fact, the dull flannels and wool gloves help him blend in almost better than John does in his thick jumpers.

John waits for a while, but an explanation's clearly not in the wings, so he finally just asks, “So, are we here for a reason? Are you looking for someone?”

Holmes rolls the Styrofoam cup around in his hands, and John worries that his fidgeting will spill the hot coffee right down his long fingers and land him in the ER with burns. “No,” Holmes says, “I merely want to observe them. I've found that there are those who prefer living on the streets even when they might find refuge with their families. I want to know why.”

John can hear a little something in Holmes's tone. “Oh. So, you knew someone who ended up on the streets? Did you ever find him? Her?”

Holmes doesn't answer. John takes that as a 'no.' “If you want to help the homeless population, then you can donate money or volunteer in the soup kitchen.” Even as he says that last bit, John knows that Holmes is going to roll his eyes disdainfully as he does immediately. 

“Any soup kitchen unfortunate enough to accept my services would quickly lose their clientele,” Holmes says dryly, his keen gaze falling on a particularly rough denizen of the alley, and the middle-aged man looks back at them with hard suspicion.

“Bit intimidating, aren't you?” John says just as dryly.

“Quite,” Holmes agrees calmly and leaves it at that. They stay awhile longer before Holmes has his fill of disturbing the locals, and they walk down the busy street, waiting to be picked up by Anthea, who had gone to do whatever she does when her employer has his peculiar outings with John.

“Interesting,” Holmes muses, and he stops walking, so abruptly that John nearly falls into his back.

John gives him an annoyed look. “Yeah, it's a crime scene.” Why does Holmes find a bloodstained crime scene worth stopping for? His uncharitable side makes a scathing, if silent, comment about the rich finding prurient entertainment in the ugly actions of the lower masses.

“Do you realize that the murderer is still here?” Holmes asks him, his eyes curiously intent on John's face. “Or rather, the murderess, if I'm to be semantically accurate.”

John whips around and scans the large crowd watching the police do their grim work, photographing and marking the badly beaten body lying prone, face completely bashed in. “What, really?”

Holmes nods towards a nearby pretty woman in high heels. “They fought over a boyfriend. The young lady in heels is wearing a diamond bracelet, the diameter and design of which match the irritated marks on the victim's wrist. Moreover, the lady's fashionable hair and shoes indicate that she has an interest in couture, so why is she wearing a dress that clashes so terribly with her coat? Bloodstains require a terribly quick clothing change, in this case, one made convenient by the dumpster nearby.”

John stares at him in complete wonder. “My God, that's amazing. You can really tell all that?”

Holmes blinks at him in surprise before his attention switches back to the officers interviewing the witnesses. “They're completely ignoring her,” he observes. “How ridiculous.” He then looks at John expectantly. 

John looks back at him and throws up his arms. “What—you want me to go tell them that she's the murderer? I don't think that's a good idea. What you said makes sense to me, but they're the police; they have to go by the book.”

Holmes frowns insistingly.

The jail cell door locks behind John and the madman who hired him for miscellaneous social activities. Social activities, his arse!

Holmes inspects the thin cot with distaste before taking off his coat and laying it over the blanket already there. Then he sits down. Not nearly so fancy free, John tries to think of the most sympathetic story he can; unfortunately, he doesn't think pointing at Holmes and shouting, “He's a lunatic!” is going to be of much use.

The Detective Inspector glowers at them, his cell phone in hand. “I'll make this clear one more time: We do not have time to truck with gate-crashers. You think you've got a tip or something, call the hotline. You come tromping around our clearly marked scenes, maybe destroying evidence, and one night in jail will be the least of your worries.”

“No, but, wait, we were just trying to help,” John tries to explain, but it sounds pathetic to him too.

Hardly waiting for a response, the DI rolls his eyes and stomps out the room, muttering in annoyance. “Can't even have a peaceful dinner with my wife on a Sunday. Maybe we really should go on holiday. Spain's nice this time of year, isn't it?”

The female sergeant at his side nods sympathetically as they reach the outer doors, which slam shut behind them. 

Aghast at the dismissal, John swings back to Holmes. “Thanks for the support.”

Holmes looks completely unbothered at the DI's dismissal. “I have nothing to prove, Dr. Watson. If the police choose not to listen to reason, then I can hardly be bothered to care.”

“But you're right,” John protests. “Don't you care that they think you're a liar?”

Holmes's eyes are pieces of granite, and they glitter unnervingly in the half-light. “No,” comes the simple reply.

 

John's given up categorizing this Holmes business. The man has the oddest hobbies, and more and more, John thinks that he's simply babysitting a rich, eccentric man. They're collecting different brands of Nicotine gum, God only knows why, when Holmes's cell phone vibrates with an incoming message. John puts the basket at the chip and PIN machine and breathes a sigh of relief that no one he knows is also doing their shopping at this time. Holmes reads the text, and his forehead creases with dismay.

“Everything all right?” John asks, because Holmes has turned rather pale, and when he looks at John, his eyes are fractured with emotions that he quickly smothers with his usual aplomb. 

“Perfectly fine,” Holmes says, offering him a tight smile. “Unfortunately, it looks like I'm required elsewhere. I'm afraid that I'll need the car, but Anthea will call you a cab, at my expense, of course. Good day, Dr. Watson.”

John argues with himself, but Holmes has never been anything but consistent, always sticking to a schedule, and he has never dropped his guard, even when John first met him with vomit on his breath after the overdose.

It's a hospital. John hesitates, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

It would be bad, extremely bad, if John gets caught eavesdropping, but fortunately, the nurse on duty rather liked his looks and believed his thin story about an ailing relative right down the hall.

John wanders the halls, checking each room for the familiar tall, posh figure. He hears the cultured tones first before he sees them when he pokes his head into a large airy room.

“You gave the doctor quite a scare, Sherlock,” Holmes says sternly to the thin, ratty haired figure in the hospital bed. Eyes closed, lashes lying peacefully on slightly sunken cheeks, Sherlock doesn't answer.

Holmes clears his throat uncomfortably. “Dr. Lam thought you'd stopped breathing, but as soon as she texted me, you started up again. I suppose it's just in your nature to be inconvenient. I was rather busy, you know, and don't have time to cater to your subconscious whims.”

Holmes fiddles with his omnipresent umbrella, tapping the tip against the bed frame, and the noise echoes harshly in the room.

“Research indicates that talking to comatose patients is beneficial. However, I rather like the idea of being allowed to talk while you can't run away or ignore me. Perhaps some sense from my words will seep into your brain.

“I visited Mummy last week, and she sends you her love. I've told her that you're chasing bandits and whatnot in Monaco. She's cross that you don't send letters, but you hardly did before. I suppose we ought to be grateful for your usual negligence.

“Mrs. Turner's nerves are still overwrought. She worries that she should have found you earlier. I've told her, on your behalf, that you're an idiot and very difficult to stop. I should know.”

It continues on like that, with Holmes talking softly to the comatose man, and it's painful to hear, the long silences and intermittent tapping of the umbrella. Even Mycroft Holmes can fidget when he feels uncomfortable and helpless.

Feeling rather numb and ashamed, John makes his way out of the hospital, and wonders about the identity of the man in the hospital. The man who seemed to be the single point of vulnerability, of humanity, that Mycroft let show. Judging by Holmes's reference to “Mummy,” the man can't be his son, but maybe a brother? 

 

When John sees Mycroft again, he wonders a bit nervously whether or not the man would be able to tell that John trespassed so badly on his privacy. But Mycroft seems to notice nothing, and his greeting is as distantly cordial as always.

Mycroft has chosen for them to stroll in the park, and it's really a lovely afternoon for it since the sun is out and shining despite the overcast days previous. John admits that the topiary dotting the paved walkway is rather impressive, and he's admiring a bush that's been formed into the shape of a deer when Holmes drifts away from him and advances on the ice cream man who has just finished handing a little girl a chilled treat.

“I fancy an ice lolly,” Mycroft says suddenly, a menacing edge to his genial smile. “What would you like, Dr. Watson?” 

John gives him a funny look. “An ice lolly for me too would be fine, if you're buying.”

The ice cream man beams at them and comes up with two brightly colored ice lollies. Holmes hands him the money but refuses to take the treats. “I'm afraid that's not quite what I'm looking for. The ice lolly you just handed the little girl over there is wrapped in yellow, and you took it from the second compartment in your cart.”

The ice cream man stops smiling, a shadow falling over his face, and he backs away in a hurry. John doesn't know what's going on, but better safe than sorry, and he tackles the man, pinning him to the ground. 

Mycroft slips the newly opened ice lolly from the little girl's hand before she can take another lick and examines it. “You didn't take any money from her. Either you're being very kind to children, which I doubt, since you charged the little boy in green earlier, or you're the girl's relative—father most likely. Terrible marriage troubles, I see—your ring is rather badly tarnished—and you believe your wife will win custody, so you decided to kill your daughter with an ice lolly, most likely one made of antifreeze.”

“No, no,” the ice cream man gasps out. “He's lying, no, it's not true.” He struggles to keep his sweaty face up and turned towards the little girl. “No, sweetie, there's nothing wrong with the lolly. You tried it already, and it's nice and sweet as always, right?”

“Rather damning,” Mycroft counters dismissively. “Antifreeze is notorious for its deceiving, sweet nature. The ill effects, which lead to death, usually begin within half an hour.”

“Oh my God,” John breathes out in horror. He keeps the writhing man's arm twisted behind him, and fumbles for his mobile, but he forgot it at home. “Damn it, Mycroft, call an ambulance!” The little girl is only five or six, but she hears enough to understand that her father tried to kill her, and she collapses into fretful sobs on the grass, dirt staining her pretty white dress.

Mycroft is unperturbed by the scene. “You needn't worry, John. She's only licked the outer coating of the lolly. The frozen antifreeze is in the middle. He would have allowed himself enough leeway to be gone by the time she finished the ice lolly and began to feel sick.”

“You don't know that for sure,” John grits out. “For God's sake, Mycroft, just call the damn police!”

Mycroft looks at him like he is being deliberately obtuse. “Of course, I know. Here, I'll show you,” he says, and he bites into the ice lolly.

John's mind blanks out for a moment, and when he regains his senses, he finds himself pressed against Mycroft, whose eyes are wide enough for the sunlight to catch the hints of blue, and he looks down to find the ice lolly smashed to bits on the ground.

“What did you think you were doing?” John demands furiously. “I thought you were supposed to be intelligent. Risking your life isn't worth proving me wrong.”

Subdued, Mycroft says nothing in response before they finally part in a wail of sirens.

 

John follows the maitre'd through the posh restaurant until he finds himself in a private room, where Mycroft is sitting at the table with a sweet-faced young woman who looks as nervously out of place as John does.

“Miss Hooper, this is my associate, Dr. John Watson,” Mycroft introduces them. “John, this is Miss Hooper, one of the few remarkable individuals in the world who could stand my brother.”

Miss Hooper smiles awkwardly. “He wasn't so bad most of the time,” she protests gently, “just a little, just a little tactless...” She trails off, and she shakes hands with John. Her fingers have calluses that John recognizes from consistent use of a scalpel, and she smells not unpleasantly of medical soap.

“Miss Hooper is exceedingly kind. My brother, Sherlock,” Mycroft explains with a knowing smile at John, who shifts uncomfortably, “liked to go around telling people that he was a sociopath, and tellingly, almost all believed him.”

“I think sociopaths generally wouldn't be so honest though,” John says to alleviate the devastated look that Miss Hooper gives Mycroft. “It's a lot harder to hurt people when they're watching for it.”

Mycroft actually laughs out loud. It's sharp with derision, and it lights his face with a cruel cast. “My, my, John, I wish my brother were conscious to hear your defense. He would have gladly shown you the error of your beliefs.”

John flushes a mortified red. “What the hell is this lunch for?” he demands loudly, and Miss Hooper shrinks back at the noise. John has his differences with Harry's choices, but damned would he make a mockery of her in front of others, and he finds it unconscionable that Mycroft hasn't similar compunctions about Sherlock. “If you hate your brother, then why bother visiting him? Why meet with his best friend every month?”

Mycroft's lips thin to an angry white line, and he fully returns John's glare. “Don't presume to know me, Dr. Watson,” he warns chillingly, and his hands tighten, white-knuckled, on the edge of the table, as he stands there, a pillar of isolation.

Looking wildly between them, Miss Hooper ends up breaking the stalemate with her exclamation, “No, Dr. Watson, you misunderstand!” She grips John's hand with her small one, and he breaks away from the blazing ice in Mycroft's eyes. 

“When...when Sherlock got found, we thought for sure he was dead, and Mycroft...” She falters in her explanation then, looking uneasily at Mycroft, who's now carefully unfolding his crumpled napkin and replacing it on his lap. “Mycroft was so upset,” she finishes softly, and the room echoes with all that is unsaid.

The complete lack of expression on Mycroft's face gives no indication that Miss Hooper is speaking about him, and the room is suffocating in its silence until the waitress comes back with appetizers.

Clearly nervous, as trapped as a bird between a snake and a cat, Miss Hooper picks at her food, and John can't say that his appetite is much better. Mycroft, of course, hardly ever touches his food, and John would say something about waste as the man's nearly full plate is taken away, but he feels no desire to start a new battle.

“It's rather interesting, actually,” Mycroft says idly into the air. “I recently met a young man who rather reminded me of Sherlock. Very intelligent and very fond of playing with people.” Mycroft puts a certain twist on the latter words that gives John a squirmy feeling in his stomach.

Miss Hooper blinks in surprise and gives a gently skeptical look. “I didn't think there could be anyone in the world like Sherlock. He's incredibly unique.”

“Mm, so did I,” Mycroft says musingly, and he puts his glass of wine to his lips. John eyes the amount left and thinks of the full glass the waiter poured only half an hour ago. “It's a pity that Sherlock and Jim Moriarty cannot meet. The fireworks would be spectacular, but I'm not certain whether we'd have a double funeral or a happy announcement by the end of the week if they did.”

“Where'd you meet this guy? Work?” John asks, because Mycroft only ever seems to be in two places, at his mysterious office or whatever strange place he's decided he absolutely must visit with John.

“In a manner of speaking. He was the mastermind of several interrelated crimes in various areas of the country. Astonishingly high numbers of murder-suicides in one county. Well regarded doctors stealing hearts from their live patients in another. Judges here and there carelessly sentencing the innocent to life imprisonment.” 

“Hang on, I don't remember reading those stories in the papers,” John protests. “I'd remember stuff so disturbing.”

“You wouldn't find them in the news,” Mycroft says coolly, and John wonders again uneasily what exactly it is that Mycroft does for a living. He's nearly forgotten Miss Hooper's presence, and he nearly jumps off his chair when he hears her speak up.

“Sherlock wasn't like that,” Miss Hooper says abruptly, her face pale and aghast. “He would never do things like that. He liked to solve the crimes, and he could never think about, about doing what your master criminal's been doing.” 

“You sound quite sure of yourself,” Mycroft smirks. “Sherlock liked to pin up photographs of mutilated bodies on his bedroom wall. He de-fleshed and polished the skull of a convicted murderer to display on the mantel. He dug up the grave of a murdered woman and left her body in the marital bed for her husband to find.”

Miss Hooper is considerably stronger than John expected, and she counters Mycroft's artillery of words with plenty of her own. “Sherlock put up those photographs so that he could find the perpetrators and inform the police. He saved that murderer's skull because the man had been framed, and Sherlock knew what it felt like to be misunderstood. And he pulled that nasty trick with the woman's body because he knew her husband did it and was feeling guilty.”

John doesn't know anything about Sherlock, but he can tell that Mycroft was being deliberately harsh, and Miss Hooper is probably inclined to romanticize the facts a bit since she is Sherlock's friend. He waits for Mycroft to turn his incisive wit on Miss Hooper and flay her passionate defense into pieces, but Mycroft remains silent.

Miss Hooper stares beseechingly at Mycroft like she can change his thought patterns through sheer will. “You remember those things about Sherlock too, don't you?”

Mycroft looks away. “It's been three years, Miss Hooper,” he responds, his voice hollow. “Three long years. It gets rather difficult to remember what Sherlock was.”

 

Meeting Miss Hooper seems to have sparked an urge in Mycroft to once again revisit everything to do with his brother. They're walking down a particular street in London that John's never really noticed before, despite the odd name, “Baker Street.” Mycroft is vague on the details, but apparently, Sherlock used to live around the area or at one point considered living around the area. Every so often Mycroft just stops in the middle of the street and falls into reverie while John tries to stand to the side and let any passersby get past them.

“Mycroft! Mycroft Holmes!” The cry repeats itself, and John looks curiously around to find an older woman in a deep purple dress coming up to meet them.

Mycroft's attention snaps to her immediately. “Mrs. Hudson,” he greets politely before adding, “John, this is Mrs. Hudson, my brother's erstwhile landlady when he was in university. Mrs. Hudson, Dr. John Watson.”

It doesn't escape John that Mycroft doesn't specify John's position in his life, but honestly, John couldn't come up with a suitable term either. They're definitely not friends; they don't fall into the usual employer-employee relationship (never mind that “associate” nonsense Mycroft fed Miss Hooper); and John's still iffy about calling them companions, whatever that means.

“Oh, well, very nice to meet you, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Hudson flutters before turning back to Mycroft. “And how's Sherlock coming along? He was rather close to getting his degree when I had to leave so unexpectedly.”

Mycroft smiles blandly. “Sherlock is doing very well. He's decided to study abroad in France for the next year, so he shan't be back for some time. No doubt he finds the change in culture and climate very stimulating,” he lies smoothly, and John tries not to gawp at him.

“Oh, really.” Mrs. Hudson looks a little baffled. “I thought he would always be London-based, but he's young yet, and Sherlock always does like his adventures.”

“Yes, he did,” Mycroft agrees, and the little slip of tense doesn't seem to bypass Mrs. Hudson, but she just nods a bit and seems about to bid them goodbye when Mycroft's hand comes out and rests on her arm. He gently pulls her sleeve up, and John stares at the dark pattern of bruising around her wrist.

“I see Mr. Hudson still hasn't a firm grasp of his anger management during his alcohol-fueled rampages,” Mycroft observes so factually that the words have no impact on John until he thinks them through carefully. 

Mrs. Hudson looks absolutely stricken, and she wavers on her feet. Fearing a collapse, John helps her settle onto some nearby stairs and checks her pulse automatically, patting her arm as soothingly as he can despite being a virtual stranger.

“Well,” Mrs. Hudson says with a trembling smile at odds with her blank eyes, “Bill has a temper. Even when we were first walking out, I knew that.”

Mycroft regards her with an emotion that John would hesitate to call 'concerned,' but there's something of the sort. “I recall Sherlock once offered doing you a particular kindness,” Mycroft says quietly, and John wonders if he should excuse himself since it all seems rather personal, but Mrs. Hudson turns a little ashen, and he bolsters her with a shoulder.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hudson murmurs, her faint voice nearly inaudible in the loud traffic of the streets. “Yes, Sherlock did.”

“I can offer you the same,” Mycroft continues after a thoughtful pause. 

John looks back and forth between Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson, but the sweet older woman suddenly seems to uncurl herself and expand with a sigh of relief. She looks Mycroft straight in the face and begins to nod slowly. “Yes, I think I'll accept this time. I should...I should go visit my sister in Bristol,” Mrs. Hudson says decisively. “It'll be difficult to get away, but needs must.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Mrs. Hudson,” Mycroft replies gravely. Mrs. Hudson squeezes John's hand and thanks him before rising off the steps and giving Mycroft a tight embrace. John relishes the look of mingled shock and discomfort on Mycroft's features before Mrs. Hudson potters away with her shopping basket.

“Is she going to be all right?” John asks. It sounded like Mycroft is going to do something to help her, but he doesn't understand what.

“Yes,” Mycroft says distractedly, doing something with his phone. “She will be. Her husband's wanted for murder.”

“What?” John gapes at him. “He's what! He's wanted for murder? You knew that, and you just let her go?”

Mycroft lets out a low laugh. “He's wanted for murder now, John, or rather, as of a minute past.” He checks his watch insouciantly. “Yes, I expect the police will be banging down the door in ten more minutes, and Mrs. Hudson can extend her walk and return home to peace and quiet.”

It dawns on John, slowly and sickeningly. “You just framed her husband for murder,” he says flatly.

“It's what Sherlock would have wanted,” Mycroft says serenely, and he leaves John behind as he keeps walking down Baker's Street.

 

John thinks about it over the days, and he isn't sure what it says about him that he finally decides that if Mr. Hudson is an abusive louse, then maybe it is just as well that he's thrown in jail before he can murder Mrs. Hudson. It still doesn't sit well with John, and he doesn't think he would do something like that, but mostly, maybe it's that he doesn't have that sort of power.

When Mycroft calls a week later, requesting his presence at a restaurant that Sherlock had apparently favored, John doesn't make any excuses. He goes.

“So,” John says, looking round at the small, crowded tables filled with happily chatting people dressed semi-formally. Some of the men are in suits, but still, Mycroft stands out as much as a flamingo does amongst seagulls. “Did your brother, er, Sherlock, really like the food, or the ambience...?”

“I haven't the faintest idea,” Mycroft says, and a lesser man would have shrugged his shoulders to convey his bafflement. “Out of the thirteen restaurants that Sherlock frequented, this was the one he visited the most after he was done being foolish for the week.”

“Well, they seem to have all sorts here, so maybe it was nice to watch the people,” John suggests, reaching for a breadstick. “My sister, Harry, and I used to do this game where we'd guess about people and make things up about their lives.”

“Sherlock wouldn't be making anything up,” Mycroft demurs, hands clasped around his glass. “He rather liked deducing facts from complete strangers to shock them.”

John laughs, but Mycroft looks serious. “What, you mean he could tell whether someone was, I don't know, a father of three, without seeing the kids around?”

“More than that. Take the thirty-four-year-old man in the striped shirt sitting near the painting of the onions. By observation, one could tell that he is a previously unemployed construction worker who recently found a new job today. He's ecstatic because his wife is expecting their third child, and he's been worried about their finances.”

Half-eaten breadstick forgotten in his hand, John stares in amazement. “My God, that's brilliant! How can you tell all that?”

Mycroft studies him with a strange expression: puzzlement. “Most wouldn't be so trusting that I'm correct.”

“I could go ask him,” John admits, “but, no, I believe you. It's incredible. Can you do that with everyone?”

“Of course.” Mycroft looks affronted, and John almost giggles at the unexpected churlish expression.  
“You must merely observe.”

“I don't think that's the ticket. But let's see if I can do it,” John says cheerfully. He looks for a likely target. “Okay, bloke in the blue shirt who's eating out with his wife and kid. Um, he's dressed really well, so he probably earns a lot of money, and maybe it's expected at his job. He could be a banker or a businessman or a—”

“Serial killer.”

“Or a serial...” John starts to repeat before shutting up. He jerks around to watch the man, who's now laughing and toasting his pretty wife, who blushes happily and clinks her glass against his. “Are you joking—is this a joke, Mycroft?”

“No,” Mycroft returns coolly. “He is not dining with his wife and child. No married man goes around refilling his wife's glass once her cheeks are that red. He's getting her drunk in hopes of making her an easier victim.”

The blue-shirted man chucks the little girl under the chin and spoons more pasta into her bowl. The woman holds her glass a bit unsteadily and wipes her chin a little after her second sip.

“Maybe they just have a lousy relationship, and she's not as likely to row with him if she has an extra glass,” John argues, his argument ringing hollow to his own ears. 

“Then I wonder why the father doesn't care that his daughter's eating a shrimp off the floor. Any father genuinely affectionate would be stopping her by now. But right now, the man's eyes are on the woman and her increasingly clumsy movements. The child would just be a bonus, or perhaps he considers himself an honorable man and will spare her for being so young.

“What are you doing, John?” Mycroft finishes his revelations and looks bemusedly at the mobile John is dialing under the table.

“I'm calling the police!” John hisses, looking over his shoulder to check that the serial killer is still preoccupied with paying the bill. Well, what a gentleman, John thinks hysterically, he would pay the woman's meal before killing her!

“You needn't bother,” Mycroft says dismissively. “He's done it at least four times, and each time the police let him go after a brief interview. Even if they listen to you and come, he will only change his plan and get away with more victims once they've forgotten him.” 

John bangs down his cell phone, wincing after the fact at his careless abuse. “Then what do you suggest?” he demands in frustration.

The serial killer lives in a lovely house with a beautiful garden filled with newly planted flower bulbs that are beginning to blossom. John curses underneath his breath, as he forces himself over the front gate and fiddles with the stubborn lock before finally letting Mycroft inside.

“You couldn't have pulled a few strings?” John grumbles half-heartedly.

Mycroft arches an eyebrow at him. “Might I remind you that this was not my idea? And I'm afraid that my influence is not as extensive as you believe.” There is a little something in his voice at the end, and John suddenly realizes that he hasn't seen Anthea for some time. It is an avenue of thought he'd pursue, but they are rather busy just then.

John goes about peeking through the windows, and he hopes to God that no one mistakes him for a peeping tom. The ASBO would do his life no good whatsoever. He hears no crying, no screaming, no signs of a struggle—was that good or bad? He can hear the tip of Mycroft's umbrella tapping against the stones in the pavement, and he turns around to shush the other man when Mycroft abruptly leans down, brings up a rock, and sends it flying through the house's pretty little picture window.

The sounds of glass shattering and raining to the ground grate on John's nerves as he runs to the door and waits for the man to come out to investigate. As soon as he sets foot outside, John throws himself onto him and uses a headlock for restraint while yelling, “Mycroft! Do something!”

Mycroft's umbrella is apparently a versatile tool. The handle, reversed in Mycroft's grip, slams into the man's head and keeps him down while John rushes into the house. He finds the woman semi-conscious on the sofa, her arm hanging limply, shallow lines drawn into the tanned flesh, but she breathes steadily and looks otherwise unharmed, and he breathes a sigh of relief. The loud banging from the hallway closet draws his attention, and he lets the crying little girl out.

“Mummy!” She sobs heartbreakingly. “I want, I want, my mummy!”

John carries her to the sofa, where she curls up with her dazed mother, and John thinks about putting his coat on them before realizing that he probably doesn't want to leave behind evidence. He has had enough of cramped jail cells.

“We had better leave now, John,” Mycroft's voice sounds softly into his ear, and John nods absently as he rubs the twinge in his leg. His hands are perfectly steady as he uses Mycroft's handkerchief to lift the house phone and make the call.

They're watching discreetly at a distance with all the neighbors as the man's cuffed to his stretcher and loaded onto an ambulance. “So,” John finally says. “I suppose your employers aren't too keen about the holidays spent enacting your comatose brother's hobbies?”

Mycroft huffs out a laugh, surprisingly not offended by John's candor. “No, they are not. It takes a significant amount of time and effort to maintain my position, and I find that I no longer possess my earlier ambition.”

“What will you do then?” John asks, because he still has the clinic job outside the hours he spends being Mycroft's friend. “Be a freelance detective? Maybe a vigilante?” he suggests half-seriously, still in awe of the power that rests in Mycroft's astute mind.

Mycroft laughs again, but this time the sound is free of its usual coldness and restraint, and something in John begins to warm. He claps a hand on Mycroft's shoulder and thinks he wouldn't mind running about with him more often. The man might be mad as a duck sometimes, but John's getting used to him.

“Let's get a drink,” John decides, rocking back on his heels.

Mycroft arches a ginger brow at him, but John doesn't take the offer back. “What? Don't tell me you don't go to bars.” Actually, John knows good and well that Mycroft drinks scotch and brandy that couldn't be found in any old bar, but John has a budget to follow under pain of death.

“Yes,” Mycroft says eventually, “that would be fine.”

“All right then,” John says a bit recklessly, “I'll buy you a drink,” and, still enjoying the thrum of leftover adrenaline, he throws an arm around Mycroft's shoulders and tugs him towards the taxi that's finally arrived.

 

John's worried. It's a disconcerting feeling of unease that creeps up his spine and worms around low in his stomach. It's been two weeks and five days since Mycroft last contacted him for an outing, and it's happened before, of course; John estimates that Mycroft, despite appearances, only takes up 20% of his time. But facile manners are one thing that John can fully expect, and nary a text message, phone call, or messenger bearing a reason has yet to come.

John's thinking about going back to his stalker ways when his mobile vibrates with an incoming text message: “Come outside. A.” John wonders who “A” is even as he turns to look out the window, and he sees a long black car idling at the door to his block of flats.

“Been a while,” he says as he slides onto the seat across from Anthea. “I suppose Mycroft got missed and reinstated?” John doesn't stop the smug expression he lets loose on Mycroft's behalf, and he feels briefly surprised at himself for the surge of protectiveness and loyalty.

Anthea doesn't look up from her Blackberry, and the door closes automatically, sealing them up in the warm interior. “Something like that,” she says shortly, and held up by the tension he hears below the usual tonelessness, John warily examines her composed face. “We'll be meeting Mr. Holmes in an undisclosed location; please remain in your seat.”

It's new: meeting in a large, echoing warehouse filled with nothing but a table and a chair. Mycroft waits on the other side of the table, umbrella tip pointed towards the ground, and John's grinning at the atmosphere of intrigue that's being cultivated. 

“Is this where you tell me what you really do for the government?” John asks jokingly, and he expects a droll remark from Mycroft, but the man's face is like a mask, and John steps around the table to speak more closely with him. 

“What's wrong? Is it, is it Sherlock?” John hazards the guess, hoping that he's wrong.

Mycroft ignores his question in favor of handing him a thin envelope. John frowns and tears the top off to find a check made out to him for an unbelievable amount of money. “Thank you for your services, Dr. Watson,” Mycroft intones formally. “I apologize for the abrupt termination of our relationship, but I hope the sum enclosed will alleviate the inconvenience.”

“Wait,” John interrupts, completely thrown by what he is hearing. “What's happening? We never talked about this—” John squints at the line of zeros. “—this payment business. Remember I said that I'd help you out sometimes, but you'd better not try to pay me for it, like I'm a—”

“Take the money, Dr. Watson,” Mycroft interrupts him fiercely, and the emotionless mask shows thin cracks around the edges. “Use it for a holiday. Leave London, and see if you wouldn't like an adventure elsewhere.”

John laughs disbelievingly. He looks around the warehouse, waiting for something to happen, to fall into place and make sense of what's happening. He turns back to Mycroft, who watches him silently, and inside him, where human instincts lie, he feels fear. He stops laughing.

“What's going on, Mycroft?” he demands. “What's happened?”

“It's not your concern, John.” Mycroft, being the most fantastic liar that John's ever met, actually looks him in the face as he says it.

“I'm your friend, Mycroft. And don't tell me you don't have friends. You've got one.”

“You can show your concern, John, by doing as I tell you.” John doesn't let the growing vitriol in Mycroft's tone stop him. Step by step, he manages to back Mycroft up against the table, which makes an effective barrier despite its flimsy appearance.

“Is it Sherlock?” John asks again, and he holds Mycroft's eyes with his own, not letting the other man pull back.

Mycroft's lips are thin and white with the strain. “I let him go.” His confession is faint and hardly stirs the air.

John furrows his brow in confusion. “Who do you mean?”

“Moriarty.”

John stares as he speechlessly demands an explanation.

Mycroft parts his lips to speak before merely shaking his head. “I received the call from the hospital,” he says finally, listlessly, eyes empty of the turmoil that John has always seen in them. 

Mycroft shrugs minimally. “Then I needed the distraction.”


End file.
